I hear what you say.
As you’d expect, I think you are over stressing the extent of any
“degradation”.
For most users who come to qubes in my experience, video playback is not
an issue.(Or perhaps it is, but they just accept it and move on.)
What’s special about this use case?
Should we highlight problems with (e.g) Video editing? Mixing? 3d
modelling? Large dataset manipulation?
There are cases with all of these where Qubes will struggle.
In my experience people who come to Qubes for what it can offer,
security through compartmentalisation, accept limitations if they come
across them.
I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.
Or alternatively they’ll just wonder if it’s something specific to the combination of their hardware and qubes.
I’ve learned to be careful with audio; if it starts to stammer because I forgot and tried to play audio in two different qubes, I’ll not be able to get it to stop short of rebooting the machine. (There seems to be no way to reset the controller.)
Hardware limitation anfd/or Qubes? I have no idea.
What is special? The huge difference that make playing videos special is that Video editing, 3d modelling and etc - are niche activities, not for everybody.
And watching video is quite the opposite - everybody does it and people expect it to work properly, at least on reasonably modern hardware.
So, everybody should know in advance that watching videos (not only youtube but any videos) will be a problem in Qubes OS, especially on a laptop (due to limited cooling).
And I am talking about lowest possible HD resolution - 1080p, because proper 4K playback is not reachable for Qubes OS at all, even on any high-end mass market CPU. It should be made clear for new users to avoid possible disappointments.
I’ve been using Qubes Os for more than 5 years and I never had any problem watching and creating YouTube videos even on my old x200 ThinkPad.
I can confirm that watching YouTube Videos on my powerful Desktop computer with the I9-12900K is not really a problem for me since I do many things that requires much more power.
While you can have some problems, that do not necessary means it is the case for everyone.
Btw, 1080p is not the lowest resolution “possible”. The lowest HD resolution is 720p (1280 x 720 pixels)
Can you, please, open on your old Thinkpad this video fullscreen at 1080p60 in Firefox:
I know that the display of old thinkpad is not even 1080p, but OK.
Do you you see frame drops in the Stats (right click → Stats for nerds)?
Do you see choppiness (micro-jumps) while camera moves (pans)?
Can you make the firefox window much smaller and notice the huge difference in smoothness?
It’s an outdated meaning, at least for Youtube. Youtube stopped considering 720p as HD several years ago, and remove HD label for these resolution. You can check it yourself
Time goes by, we cannot consider something like 720p still being “high” while it is actually very low compared to current state of video art with 4K+. If we do not change terms than we should still call 320p a “Standard Quality” (SD), while nowadays it is obviously not right, 320p is a low-quality garbage, and “Standard” is more close to 1080p.
Can you, please, open on your old Thinkpad this video fullscreen at 1080p60 in Firefox:
No, nobody cares about frame drops while watching a YouTube Video. I’m not a Fortnite gamer, LOL. So, like I said, I see no problem, no lag while watching YouTube videos on my ThinkPad…
It’s an outdated meaning, at least for Youtube. Youtube stopped considering 720p as HD several years ago, and remove HD label for these resolution.
That’s completely false. No one can change facts. In fact, Google/YouTube itself still considers 720p as an HD resolution.
Recommended resolution & aspect ratios
For the default 16:9 aspect ratio, encode at these resolutions:
Time goes by, we cannot consider something like 720p still being “high” while it is actually very low compared to current state of video art with 4K+.
Why not?! In networking, FastEthernet is called “fast” even if it’s speed is 10 times slower than GigabitEthernet. Although FastEthernet is significantly slower than GigabitEthernet, with a maximum data transfer rate of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) compared to 1000 Mbps for GigabitEthernet, it is still considered “fast” in the context of networking.
So, you suddenly realized that your old Thinkpad is not able to play YouTube videos at 1080p@60 without frame drops, not even speaking about smoothness.
And instead of posting results decided to say that no one cares about frame drops. OK, I see, smart. The next step is to say that no one cares for YouTube videos at all. Because you have right to decide for everyone what they need.
Some outdated FAQ question on google domain means nothing compared to millions of videos on YouTube itself.
Check yourself: open any YouTube video, and change quality to 720p and check yourself that HD label disappears. It will prove you that 1080p is the lowest possible HD-resolution nowadays on YouTube as I said.
So, you suddenly realized that your old Thinkpad is not able to play YouTube videos at 1080p
You’re making assumptions without evidence.
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
I can watch 1080p YouTube Videos on my x200 ThinkPad smoothly and without any lags. That what’s the most important thing for me. I don’t use Qubes Os as a Benchmark platform…
Because you have right to decide for everyone what they need.
Says the one who literally said, " watching video is quite the opposite - everybody does it".
Well, standards can’t be changed by Youtube. The 720p is one of the defined resolution thresholds for video content. It doesn’t matter if you like it or not
Some outdated FAQ question on google domain means nothing compared to millions of videos on YouTube itself.
Stop trolling you’re not even funny, the Google page was updated 3 years after that Youtube removed the HD label for 720p on their videos.
We aren’t on Reddit.
It’s natural to want to feel right, but it’s important to recognize that being right isn’t always the most important thing. Instead of focusing on being right, try to focus on understanding the perspectives of others and engaging in productive discussions.
If you’re dealing with a specific issue or problem, it’s okay to raise your problem and ask for help there, but that does not mean that everyone is facing the same problem.
What you don’t understand when me and other users say that we have no performance issues when watching YouTube videos even on old hardware like my x200 ThinkPad ?
Because I (and even people in this topic) have technical issues on 10 times faster CPUs, so, it’s obvious you also have those.
You are just OK with these technical problems, which is completely different from not having them. It’s like a gamer that plays game at 4fps and says that “my old PC runs this game flawlessly”.
As you said:
It is simply not true, there are people who value both lack of frame drops and smoothness of playback, just re-read the thread.
And it is almost impossible to achieve it on Qubes OS R4 even for ordinary 1080p@60, that is a disadvantage compared to GNU/Linux. That’s my point and I see no other tech proofs otherwise.
Everything was said, you do not want to make actual test to provide actual numbers instead of “I have no issues”. So, I got that you “have no technical issues with YouTube” because “nobody cares if video frames are dropped” during video playback, OK.
Just to add to this thread, even on my desktop pc (which run semi-modern hardware) I cannot watch videos reliable at 1440p+ or even 720p if they’re @ 60fps, choppiness just make it unbearable. However I know this is a known issue with Qubes due to how VMs doesn’t have video acceleration, so I have to use another pc without qubes for tasks that require it.
Or to put it more plainly: Qubes wasn’t intended to play hi-res videos at sixty frames per second. (And I would suspect that frame rate–over twice the standard–is the real issue.) That’s not what it’s about.
Yeah, exactly @Nulaxz
Qubes OS is primarily designed for security and isolation purposes, and not for high-performance media playback. While it is possible to play videos on Qubes OS, it is not primaly optimized for high-resolution or high-frame-rate content.
Is that a problem for me? No. Can I watch YouTube videos without having to worries about FPS? Yes.
I’ve been daily driving Qubes for at least 5 years and I believe that’s one of the best Os that I ever ran.
Some users think that the awesome security implementations in Qubes OS will not have any impact on performance, but that’s not the case. I also believe that the trade-off is well worth it.
Every person has unique needs and preferences when it comes to their computer and operating system. Some people prioritize security, while others prioritize performance or ease of use. Some people need their computer to run specific software or hardware, while others just need basic functionality.
Because of these differences, there is no one-size-fits-all operating system that will work perfectly for every user. What works well for one person may not work as well for someone else.
That’s why it’s important to choose an operating system that meets your individual needs and expectations. Whether you prioritize security, performance, ease of use, or something else entirely, there is likely an operating system out there that will work well for you. The key is to do your research, try out different systems if possible, and find the one that best meets your needs.
Note: When I need to perform some resource-hungry tasks like data analysis I’d switch to my Qubes Os desktop which has a powerful CPU (I9-12900K) and 64 GB of memory.
Thank you for your voice, another person who values smooth video playback.
When I updated my PC from 6-Gen Intel CPU to 11-Gen one (~ 2 times faster), the first thing I noticed that I was not expecting to - was the smoothness of the video on YouTube. In both cases frames were not dropped so I though that old CPU was doing playback good enough but the difference of smoothness was so drastic, that I understand how wrong I was with my previous estimation.
The point is that maybe all these video playback issues of Qubes OS are not due to some software limitation of xen, X11 or some other part of the system, but just simple CPU (single-core?) performance limitation for these tasks.
In that case we can hope that in 5-10 years Qubes OS will be able to play 1080p@60 because it will be achieved by CPU development progress even without developers’ effort for bringing hardware acceleration.
